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Ladies’ D&D Night In

I’m re-posting a great article by Aminah Mae Safi over at Geek Feminism. It’s called All My Nerd Ladies, Put Your Hands Up, and suggests that women get together and play D&D, an idea that I’ll honestly admit never actually occurred to me. It’s obviously not rocket science to suggest that a bunch of women start their own D&D group. I’ve probably never thought about it because I’m used to not having a large enough group of girlfriends to do that. But it also might be because, somewhere in the deep, dark dungeons of my mind, I never actually thought you could do things like D&D without men. Obviously, if you were to ask me, “Is it possible to play D&D without men?” I’d say, “Well, duh.” But the thought has never really consciously crossed my mind. That fact makes me deeply uncomfortable.

One thing Safi discusses in her article is that she and her fellow players didn’t have to worry about being insultingly called “girly” and felt “free enough to admit excitement over planning our characters’ costumes and buying pretty dice.” Women, myself included, often feel like they have to prove to their male nerd friends that they’re nerdy enough to be nerds. About this Safi aptly says, “I didn’t have to prove myself by quoting an entire Monty Python sketch or discussing my favorite extended universe character.” Just today, I was discussing Skyrim with a male acquaintance, and I felt I had to know all the right terms, all the right evil gods, couldn’t confess my much-lower level. Even though he is a very nice, non-judgmental guy, I found myself nodding at names of people from quests I hadn’t gotten to yet, because I didn’t want him to think, oh it’s another girl who thinks she’s a gamer. This need to prove myself is embarrassing, and yet I can’t really blame myself. My whole life I’ve had to prove that I belong amongst geeks. I had to outdo a kid in seventh grade in a discussion about the Return of the King, because I knew he didn’t respect my knowledge of Tolkien, because he was male and I was female. I even think about what clothes I wear when I go into a gaming or comic store, wondering if the employees will think I really belong, if I’m wearing a lacy skirt or a fashionable waist-cinching belt. And unfortunately, the habit isn’t going to die just because I know it’s unfair.

So, while I’ve never experienced outright hostility in my own D&D group, which is mixed gender and generally welcoming, I think about the idea of playing D&D exclusively with women, and I have to say I like it. When one player decides, “hey I just got some Crackle nail polish, can I paint your nails, it’s so cool,” and another player says, “sure,” and the nail-painting happens between turns, without interrupting gameplay, you don’t have to watch as the male players cringe and shake their heads, just tolerant enough not to actually say anything. There’s nothing to prove. (That really happened one night. I was the one who said, “Sure.”)

As Safi says, she isn’t trying to suggest women permanently segregate themselves into a cutesy little ivory tower of ladies playing D&D. But it is a good temporary suggestion for those of us who want to break free of the habit of having to outdo other nerds with obscure knowledge, just to earn our seat at the gaming table.